After the Memorials

I've been to the two memorials for AH in the past couple of weeks. First was a public one that took place the last morning I was in San Francisco. The second one took place for our Sangha the week following. Immediately following each departure something kind of special happened.

First was trying to leave the public memorial at a chapel inside of cemetery grounds set above the Willamette River along a road that wound through cemetery grounds. In leaving CK waved me ahead, calling out, "since you know your way better."

I would then proceed to get the two of us lost. Plus another car behind CK who had the mistaken notion that the person in the lead car (me) would know what they were doing (wrong). So around and around we all went.

At first I was so demoralized by this. Not knowing where I was going. People thinking I should and now I've let them down. All that "Blah, Blah, Blah" of the Inner Critic layered atop my feeling beyond exhausted by the day. I'd slept fitfully, awoke at 4:30 to drive hard, fast, but safely, in order to make it just on time to the service. The incense offering, while beautiful, had me coughing painfully and my whole body ached.

Tears came to my eyes at this indignity of being lost in the cemetery. Soon however, the absurdity of the moment sunk in. Her we all were in our cars, in mourning, and unable to figure how to get away from the memorial chapel. It was as though we were in a comedy.

For several moments, as I tired to sort out the maze of the winding road, I would burst out in loud, helpless laughter.

"How inappropriate" I could hear my Inner Critic remark, perhaps in my Grandmother's voice.

Since I was the only one in the car, and a part of felt like AH would appreciate the absurdity of the moment, the voice didn't take hold. I laughed some more, wiped tears from my eyes and eventually sorted out how to get back onto the bit of winding road that lead out.


The next memorial was a week later for our Sangha. Several members of the women's practice group had decided to read some of AH's poems. I had picked one to read and doing so just depleted me of all the energy I had for the day. I left immediately afterward, feeling crushed, leaving behind the carrier I use for the cupcakes I'd brought, and going home to bed.

On the way home, my face pale and my eyes red from crying, I had to stop and get gas. The light had come on in the car and I didn't want to chance running out. I pulled in and asked the attendant to fill the tank. His face was worn down, he'd seen a lot of living, but his eyes were bright and compassionate.

He came back to ask me if I was alright. I said I'd just been at a friend's memorial service. He asked if she was young or old, was the death expected. I told him she was young and her death was unexpected. He shook his head in sympathy and compassion, said how sorry he was, and he then said he was going wash my windows.

When he came back again he told me his name was Ben and told me a really sad and terrible story of losing his wife of 2 years to a car accident. He found out as the driver of the tow-truck called to the scene to retrieve the vehicles. Truly a tragedy.

Ben made sure I knew that he hadn't told me to cause me more pain at hearing his awful story. He said that he told me so I knew that when he said he was sorry for my loss that he truly understands what it is to loose someone precious. I thanked him for his willingness to share with me, to make sure I felt his compassion for my suffering. He patted my hands with his beat up ones before I left and told me to drive safely.

Thinking About AH in San Francisco

I've been.... Well, awfully busy for someone without a job. Let's see, I've been:

Taking Mom to see the naturopath/Chinese medicine doctor, plus errands, once a week for a few weeks. For those in the PDX Metro area that's from North Portland to Gresham to Lair Hill to Gresham to North Portland. For those for whom that makes no sense, just be assured that it is a lot of driving around. These days exhaust me physically and emotionally, often well into the following day.

I've been working with my Zen community to address the pain trying to practice with them as a vegan has been for CK and I. Trying to improve things for us all. This too is uncomfortable and painful. I feel singled out around being a vegan and experiencing this now reminds me that this sensation was one associated as dangerous as a child. It is very hard work to try and learn that being singled out can be an expression of loving-kindness.

I also have been making art and trying to work in the garden. These things have been really good.

CK and I also started making plans for our wedding ceremony. This is filled with all kinds of exciting emotions, mostly lovely.

Then CK got sick. Then I got it. Then we drove to L.A. to see Peter Gabriel perform, I was still quite sick. A day there and then driving up to San Francisco with a friend while CK took a flight back home to get to work. I was still sick and slept much of the drive up I5. The drive through the mountains, away from the Interstate was beautiful.

It was outside of Gilroy, CA, when I got the news that AH had died uxpectedly.

And it hit me in the chest, between the heart and the throat chakras. Hard, cold, dark, painful. Today's massage tried to work some of it loose.

Where I got the news the cellular signal wasn't great and CK was still in the air, flying home. Besides, I felt like I wanted to be stopped, not driving, somewhere safe to try and convey the news. I didn't phone her right away, waiting until I was parked outside my friends' house in San Francisco, alone to phone her. Ultimately she felt disappointed I hadn't left a message earlier. I just felt so stunned at the moment I got the news, I just froze.

I also started to think of my mother and all the challenges to her life I have witnessed, including those she dangers she chose. These memories found me as I drove alone out of Sunnyvale up I280 after dropping my friend off for a short visit there.

So there I was, in San Francisco, staying with one of my very closest friends, on vacation. There's really nothing could be solved by rushing home and KK, the friend I'm traveling has plans she is looking forward to as well. Heck, I have plans and many friends who enjoy my company who have made plans to spend time with me.

No amount of DO-ing will fix anything at all. There is this dichotomy of new pain, old pain, feelings of inadequacy, and a holiday in a city I really love to visit with people who love me. Just staying put, letting life tick on forward. Trying to let myself just enjoy the company in the present moment, the present place.

In the mornings there I woke to the constancy of traffic noise, the busyness of San Francisco. I'd lay in my friend's office with my mind thinking about AH, my Mother and CK. In and out, back and forth. Having been coughing hard for nearly a week I found it even harder to settle my mind by watching the breath because of the painful way my breath moved in my body.

It was a quieter visit than many. I was still coughing badly and conscious of the sorrow I felt. I didn't feel capable of rushing. I mostly rested and relaxed in the mornings. A bit later in the day my friend and I'd go out. One day to SFMOMA and the second afternoon he drove us across the bay to Berkeley. Each day was quieter and more reflective.

It was in the glorious, golden light of evening that streamed across Berkeley that I was just struck at how happy I am - how lucky, how fortunate.

Right there with that simple joy I felt welling up in me was this hard, sharp point of AH's death. My mind returning again and again to her smile, sometimes so sly, and so often gleaming in her eyes with mischievousness. Her hugs, the warmth I felt in each and every one of them. Her curiosity about life which makes her death so hard to process. I nearly felt silly, but I kept thinking how I'll miss her wonderful sweaters & scarves and how seeing her in them often brought a lightness to my heart when it felt heavy.

I commented to SJ as we walked that there is this strangeness in practice where we learn to accept that we feel all of these things at the same time. If we are present to everything there in front of us, it is all in there together. The awful and the glorious.

There is the unspeakable grief that sticks in the space between my heart and throat chakras, stealing my voice, incomprehensibly intertwined with a gratitude & happiness that is too precious for words. All there, all together. I noted that I could just sit down with a thump into that dark sorrow, or rush back pointlessly to Portland, but if I did so I'd be turning my back on the dear friend with me that moment and the incredible beauty surrounding us.

So I was simply happy strolling across Berkeley in the evening light. Choosing that brightness and wrapping it around the jagged edges. There's nothing that makes that sharpness go away, but there is some cushion between the points in allowing myself to be present to the joy that exists simultaneously alongside them. I'm grateful to have so many loving people in my life, so many safe havens where no one minds that I go from tears to laughter within moments.



Good-by, AH, I will miss you.
May we all be at ease.

The Opposite of My Mother

Mom was having a bad day yesterday. She tried phoning the house at 10:30 to say I shouldn't come out, but I'd been gone all morning and was already headed out the Gresham. She didn't answer the door right away and I could hear her dog whining a little at the door. When she finally did I could tell immediately she wasn't alright. Her blood sugar was a little low and she was very nauseated, immediately lying down on the sofa with the crackers she was trying to eat.

I'd picked up a gluten, soy & sugar free muffin from Sweetpea for her as part of my morning errands and put it on a plate for her. As she started to try and eat that I took out her trash and put her outgoing mail in the drop. I went up to the office for her apartment complex and had them make a key for me. I also had them put my contact information down for emergencies since Mom's husband is sometimes up on Larch Mountain and could miss a call quite easily.

When I got back to the apartment she'd managed to eat the whole muffin and felt a little better for it. Mom hasn't been very forthcoming with details, so I tried to get a few from her about her health. Aside from just wanting to have a more complete picture of what is going on with her health, CK and I are hoping that an early October date for our wedding will be soon enough for her to be there.

Mom ended up saying something about it not mattering. She is so happy for CK & I and she loves CK. She doesn't mind it if she has to miss our wedding. Mom ended this exchange with the comment that if she had to feel the way she was feeling at that moment for many months she'd rather just die now.

And it hurt. It really hurt. She totally missed the point that maybe we were trying to have a wedding when she was well enough to be there for my sake, for our sake. That we wanted her to be there. I left pretty soon after this exchange to let her get some rest.

Later in the day she phoned me and we talked for a while. I said I wanted her to make sure I could speak with her doctors. Ultimately what I found out was that after being informed about the cancer Mom has cut off most of her contact with the doctors. She was referred to an oncologist, but felt like she was being pressured to sign up for tests, chemotherapy and all the things she doesn't want to go through. She hasn't done much of anything since, falling back into a typical behavior for her - throwing up her hands and refusing to deal with the situation.

I ended up talking her through some things. EB had advised me that Mom is entitled to ask for a hospice team and CK noted that Mom should be referred to a palliative care specialist. She's been given a very serious diagnosis and she shouldn't feel that she has to choose "treatment". I told her on Thursday we could look at some things at Kaiser. She also agreed to try acupuncture if I would help her find someone.

Once again I found myself stepping into the role of the "grown up" in dealing with my Mother. I've been the adult in our relationship most of my life. Even now we are each falling into the roles we know best.

I feel pretty beat up today. It hurts seeing her suffer, the familiarity of it has never lessened the pain of it. The inevitability of eventual death for everyone doesn't in anyway soften the blow. Her behaving exactly as I expect her to, exactly as she's always done doesn't make it any less painful. There's a part of me that just wants to scream at her and ask why she cannot be the grown up at least once in my life.

But she can't be the adult. If she couldn't at the rare times she was healthy, to expect her to do it when she is dying isn't very reasonable. As painful as it is for me to have to once again take care of things, especially the arrangements for her approaching decline & death, it feels wrong to mimic her. I really would rather throw up my hands, claim despair and not deal with all of this, but I have always done best in life when I choose to behave the opposite of my Mother.

The Weight of Her Regret

It has really hit me the past couple of weeks just how ill my Mom is. It wasn't that I was truly in denial, but just a real depth of grief that I've been feeling. I think the bittersweet energy of getting ready for a trip to the Oregon coast this past weekend, the sense of urgency around taking trips with her while she can still enjoy them is part of it. Another was overhearing her say to someone at a gallery that she was dying.

What occurred to me is that I've never heard my Mom make that kind of admission. She's always met cancer, or her other ills, head on and ready for a fight. Her response has always been that she's going to beat this latest assault to her body. Now she doesn't say that, she says that she is dying. She's does offer that she believes in miracles, so who knows what could happen, but that is usually an aside to saying she's finally, right now, alright with dying.

The cancer, somewhat at the top of her stomach, is late into Stage 2. This usually means it has spread to multiple layers of the stomach and/or the lymph nodes. It is causing her discomfort, nausea, and vomiting, particularly if she eats things that are difficult for the stomach to process. Because of these problems she's fighting some malnourishment already.

Last week CK and I picked up Mom and took her to a small place south of Yachats. She had been a little worried at first about what she'd eat, but finally decided she was up for trying new things. I spent much of last week cooking several dishes that were vegan and all soy-free except for the chick pea salad, which had Vegenaise in it. Mom has at times been a little sensitive to soy, although it has been hard to pin down.

We noticed she did pretty well with small meals. I made her a fruit smoothie each morning and added some brown rice protein. She enjoyed our vegan, some raw, dishes very much and didn't seem to get sick from eating them. She did end up eating too much of the lentil/walnut loaf with mashed potatoes & gravy, this made her somewhat nauseated, but she was alright after laying down to rest for a while.

One afternoon we ate out and she ordered a hamburger with bacon and cheese. We didn't say anything, at this juncture it seems rather pointless to bug her. After, back at the inn, CK and I went out onto the rocky shore and Mom lay down. She told us later that this overly indulgent meal ended up making her really nauseated and she eventually vomited. I was relieved when later that day she was able to eat and enjoy a tostada with homemade, refried black beans on a baked corn tortilla.

There she was, very literally made ill by her bad choice and regretting it. I would later point out, after she was feeling better and able to hear it, that the animal proteins and fats are probably more difficult for her stomach to deal with, especially in such a large serving. I don't think a vegan diet will save my Mom's life at all, but I did see in the long weekend that the smaller, vegan meals we're easier on her body.

I later recalled listening to her order that hamburger, hearing the mix of defiance and guilt in her voice. She knew she was doing the wrong thing for her body, but she didn't want to feel like she was somehow denying herself. My Mom's choices so often seem like a child is making them, a child who wants to be indulged and doesn't give a damn about any potential consequences. I've watched this pattern with her again and again, in so many different variations.

Like so many things it seems pointless, cruel even, to shine a light too brightly on her continually making poor choices. Once or twice something she said triggered a painful memory and I felt angry at her for trying to rewrite events in my life, trying to cast herself in a more favorable light. It would strike me how childish the behavior was in many ways, like the bad choices about food, and how sad. The anger would die down pretty quickly I noticed, leaving behind layers and layers of sadness.

I'm sad my Mom is dying. I'll think about something, like what she's doing for Christmas, and it will occur to me that she could be gone before then. I'm sad for the anger I still feel over many of the selfish, mindless choices she's made, but it seems so trivial to bring them up when I watch her and see the layers of pain she's dealing with. I'm sad for all the poor choices she's made and the many ways those choices have left her regretful and unhappy; I can see the weight of the unhappiness and regret on her.

Mom News & Poetry

My Mom called today to tell me I was off the hook for taking her to a 5PM doctor's appointment. I was relieved, it would have me driving from Gresham to rather near my house and back to Gresham, during some of the worst traffic. I didn't begrudge taking her at all and was glad I could, but I certainly was relieved to hear her doctor was needed in surgery.

Then she told me that the doctor was an oncologist who has treated her in the past.

It would seem that the stomach cancer she bested oh so many years ago is back. Or just a new cancer in the stomach. Either way, it is Very Bad News.

She's known for a few weeks now, from back when she was in the hospital the last time. They told her there. It had show up in her T cell counts, they'd looked there with some of the blood work they were doing.

She said she couldn't face telling anyone. She's only told her husband last week. I felt some anger that her great idea for telling me in person, because she'd wanted to avoid telling me over the phone, was to do so while on the way to an appointment with the oncologist. I'm glad she told me over the phone. I'm just glad she finally told me.

I've lived well over half my life, perhaps closer to two-thirds of my life under the shadow of my Mother's possible death. As a child it felt like icy darkness, dread of being forced to live the rest of my childhood with my aunt or my grandmother. I spent long hours sitting in waiting rooms, reading while she would get chemotherapy.

Cervical. Skin. Stomach. Breast cancer, twice. Who knows, there may be another cancer in there I'm not recalling right now. Additional problems too, angina & other heart problems, gall bladder, infections, cellulitis, and the list could go on. In and out of doctor's offices, clinics, hospitals. Always accompanied with dread.

The news hurt. It always hurts to hear she is sick, possibly hospital bound again. She doesn't want to go through another major surgery. I don't blame her. She's had radiation so many times they cannot really fall back to that. I don't recall her mentioning chemo. She said they've prescribed a lot of pain medication.

I remembered the last time she was sick and I mentioned it to Hogen. He reminded me that I know how to face this. I've had an enormous amount of practice facing the grave health of my Mother. How to keep moving forward in the face of fear.

So I moved forward. Running a number of errands we normally would have to cram into a weekend. Tasks made easier since I wasn't at work any more. The fear subsided. In it's place remains an ache, anticipatory grief for the loss that may possibly come sooner than anyone would like. Grief for myself, for bearing the burden of her fear of death throughout so much of my life. Deep grief for all the loss she's experienced, a whole lifetime of loss and very little joy.

Unsurprisingly the news has deeply touched my offering in the Poetry Challenge.

The Loss That Comes

The fear of
My Mother’s Death
Has shadowed
Most of my life.
I’ve grown older
Immersed within it.

I easily touch
My child-self’s
Icy, dark fear of
Being left alone.

I feel the grasping after
What was lost.
What never was.
What will never be.

I become aware of myself
Endlessly spinning around
The same mythology of
Fairness.
Justice.

There is a certainty we
Wish to avoid.

We are dying.
From moment to moment.
First breath to
Last breath.
Every last
One of us.

The news comes
And the shock is
Still as startling and
Painful as it always is.
It subsides more
Quickly than when
I was a child.
Left behind is a
Dull, hollow ache of
Anticipatory grief
For the loss that comes.

Congested Engergy

And how am I...

In the past several days I've been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency, my levels are pretty low. This is actually pretty serious and can affect a person in several ways. It is the leading culprit for my fatigue, not the chronic pain that I've blamed (on the advice of my physician). The new acupuncturist, JS, is the one who guessed it on the basis of my saying how markedly better I felt in Hawaii.

Am taking a pretty enormous dose of D right now. In 12 weeks they'll test again and see if I'm any where near "normal" levels. Apparently it is fairly common in Portland to be low on it. I guess there's been a lot more attention on it recently and more doctors are testing for it now.

Still having a lot of acupuncture done. Another session focused on detoxing the body, again the heart-protector. Again I suddenly went from feeling absolutely fine, doing zazen with needles in my back, and then I'm suffused with grief and feel a headache & nausea. Not quite as intense as the first time, but pretty significant.

Was doing better and then Thursday the head pounding came back again during our Zen community cohort dinner/meeting. We went home, I went to bed early. Friday through Sunday was down and up, and down again and a shaky even into feeling rather tired today.

Saturday was the big "up" in the middle of the lows of the weekend. We made breakfast together and went for a walk in St. Johns. Coming home we had leftovers and took a nap (more acupuncture causes napping in my life). We watched the first Blue Planet DVD and went to bed early. It was all pretty marvelous until I tried to go to sleep.

Friday and particularly Saturday night into Sunday was a lot of stuff triggered, pretty early pain. Sunday morning it went straight into my left hip and leg, turning into spasm after spasm. The hip pain that for years has been associated with the herniated disc shows up, after being all but gone for two weeks, when I'm seriously emotionally triggered. Can it be any more obvious?

I'm trying to stay focused on how I was able to be present to the pain, the terrifying shame I felt. I retained the ability to talk, to fully, if haltingly, communicate what was going on. I was even able to visualize the way my body felt inside - seeing the pain like lava. This is progress. I didn't shut down completely.

In the middle of the big down, feeling enormously triggered by childhood trauma, I taught yoga. One of those times where I just get out of the way and allow that lineage to teach through me. The class ended up running long and I felt grounded, if unsteady. Coming into a shaky evenness after the storm of emotion and memory.

I worked on small art projects Sunday afternoon, in part alone with the cats. I did no chores. I didn't feel guilty about it.



A picture I took Saturday really resonated with me when I saw it had come out. It was a quick decision to take it, seeing the lines suddenly and clearly.

We were walking back out of the SuperFund site of Willamette Cove.

Cables cut, restoration begun, but toxic areas remain. Native trees reclaim the shoreline.

Just Practice

CK was coughing on and off much of the night, her second full day without antihistamines was really taking a toll. When my 6AM alarm went off I had a hard time turning it off and tried to sleep a little longer. My entire head, neck and hips hurt, I felt queasy and exhausted.

Worked on a field definition document for building new database tables and was able to focus on it fairly well. After lunch I was able to get more done but at around 2 I was just overcome with exhaustion and actually napped for little bit. I woke up feeling more focused, so I must have really needed that nap. Had some mango lemonade leftover from the party and worked hard until just past 5pm.

Went rushing over to Dishman only to have no students show up again. Curtis looked up and said two people have signed up. They're going to phone them and make sure they're still attending, so I'll come back next week. This class has been moved around so much and the August/September scheduling will be all over the place. The big breaks aren't good for consistent students, people quite often don't come back after a 4 week break! Sometimes this feels like another hint that I need to move my teaching practice on.

I've had a couple of inquiries now about private instruction. I'm honestly befuddled as to what to say I charge! I have one barter offer, which is pretty interesting. It is just this big step, change so it feels a little uncertain.

When I came home from Dishman I cleaned up the deck a bit more then kept myself focused on doing a short asana practice. I've felt this low-level mental fuzziness, resistance, depression that just has me wanting to stick close to home and avoid interacting with the world. I have an awareness of wanting to curl around it, sleep. It has been getting in the way of my practice, especially my yoga practice.

It was gorgeous on the deck and I tried to soak in the gratitude I felt for the summer evening, the clean deck, my effort to make it so. Even still my asana practice felt so boring and uninspired. I reminded myself as I exerted energy through three classical sun salutations that sometimes our practice is just Tapas and Virya Paramita. Just the burning effort that sustains the perfection of diligence.

CK reminded me last night that it has been a heck of a year so far. It isn't unreasonable that I'm still feeling some of the anger and grief around it. Yet here I am, frustrated that I am still feeling the ripples of these emotions. Why am I always so impatient with my grief?

Yep, there's my Inner Critic calling me a "Remedial Zen Student" again.

Gratitude

Tonight I was in a rush to leave the office, to walk to the flat, to feed Atari, and rush over to SE to meet CK and DTH for dinner. I had planned to not rush, but got caught up in finishing setting up some things at work for one of my projects, ran late and then was rushing.

I was walking very quickly and felt tense with trying to remember what I needed to do. By the time I got to the flat from MAX my right knee ached. I changed into "zendo clothes" and rushed off to Belmont to have dinner. As I parked it hit me that I'd forgotten my zafu, wagessa (a small cloth "scarf" I wear to signify that I've taken the first five of the 16 Precepts), and a little flax seed pillow I use to support my hands. These are not minor things to forget.

During dinner, which was a lot of fun, I felt myself stiffening up. My knee and my hips ached. I took some ibuprofen when we got to the Dharma Center, hoping it would help. I tried to walk evenly, but felt myself favoring my right leg a lot.

At the Dharma Center there's extra zafus around, even of the inflatable type I have that was made at Great Vow. I popped up to the zendo when we got there and set up my spot with a zafu I adjusted until it was the same amount of air as mine and a bench, so I can switch if my hip gets too sore. I set my wrap down on CK's zafu and went back downstairs.

HB caught me before I was going up with one directive for the chanting I'd do later, "Sweetly." he said smiling.

I laughed and said I was trying. He noted the progress I've made from rushing anxiously through the chanting service, now he wanted me to work on bringing sweetness to it, treating the sutras with affection and care in addition to precision and projection.

Then I headed up to sit. Only the zafu I'd set up for myself was gone. I quickly looked at the shelf at the back and didn't see another inflatable one. This set off some worry in my heart. The last time I'd tried to sit without an inflatable zafu my legs fell asleep and I had hip cramps from the pressure on my sciatic nerve. I dashed downstairs quick and HB spotted me. I noted quickly that someone had grabbed my zafu.

HB and I have discussed how to manage my chronic leg, hip and back pain during zazen and part of that management is an inflatable zafu. He and I both looked around the downstairs and didn't spot one!! He ducked into the teacher's room, came out with some of the zafus he & CB use, we sorted out the right one for me to take, I quickly went back upstairs and settled myself down.

After the bells finished I took some deep breaths to settle myself after the rushing around, so much rushing tonight! As I started to settled down my mind finally hit upon my teacher giving me one of their cushions to use. I suddenly found myself in tears.

I think it is more of that perspective shift. I was suddenly struck with profound gratitude and love for the community I have around me now, I see how it continues to include me and provide support. I have never felt the support of an organized group like this. I've always felt a bit on the outside. To feel this way provides as disorientating shift in view where I can suddenly grasp the profound lack of this kind of community I've felt. Hence the tears.

Normal

On Sunday during Sanzen I told HB about my Mom, about the two possible cancers. As we talked about it he reminded me that this is "normal", it is normal for me to be coping with my Mother's ill-health. It was something I really had to sit with for several days, this shifting in the concept of normal.

I talked with GM today during our session. She found it very interesting, HB pointing me to the normal-ness of the situation and yet I feel sorrow overwhelming me at times. I feel just pummeled by what feels like an unending litany of pain both present and past. CK commented to me this evening how deeply someone can be affected when they grow up with their primary caregiver gravely ill. When she wasn't ill I was unsupported in other ways. None of it good.

GM surprised me today by commenting that each time she sees me I look younger, lighter in energy. She liked the sweater I was wearing and noted the energy in the colors and pattern of it, how it suited who I am now. Finally she that I looked happy.

I pointed to the grief.

And she agreed there is a lot of it and probably more to come. She noted that in my practice I have cultivated far better tools for working through it. What we eventually came around to what that the support and love I feel now, regardless off it being in the middle of chaos going on around me, has given me a huge perspective shift. I suddenly can gauge the enormity of the grief and fear I felt, particularly as a child when I was expressly forbid from expressing it or punished when I did show it.

My childhood was a near-constant state of extreme tension, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. Broken up with long periods of being grounded, which was peaceful since I generally passed the time reading. The adults around me weren't supportive in the ways they really needed to be and seethed with anger at most times, always kept just below the surface and let out in vicious, small sentences. And Mom was ill, so often. So many doctor's visits, hospital rooms, and the raw fear of losing my only parent.

That was "normal".

Not that it was good or that I should rejoice over any of the awfulness, it was just my version of normal. I didn't really come to figure out until my 20s just how different my concept of normal was. As I mentioned to CK tonight, I thought it was perfectly normal not have the ability to recall most of my childhood.

To have a relationship that is truly nurturing and mutually supportive feels so unusual from what I'm used to that I feel somewhat destabilized by it. It creates this enormous perspective shift and I suddenly can gauge what merely felt bad was actually horrible. With this shift it seems like I'm being closed in on by all the grief I lacked the clarity to see before.

More Metta

I feel like I'm slowly pulling myself back towards practice -- sitting, writing. Last night during sanzen Hogen reminded me of doing Metta practice for myself when I was talking to him about my Mom. He said to avoid the spiraling grief, as a way anchor myself to positive practice, I needed to focus on doing Metta for myself, most importantly myself.

I had done Metta in desperation the last time my mind stumbled across horrible realization during zazen. I'd been amazed at how well I could stay with myself that time. It had been the first time I was able to do Metta for myself and it made me feel like I could stay on my cushion, not break down crying, screaming or running.

Hogen talked about there being the well of universal grief, all of us share parts in it. Whenever we experience the many sorrows of our human lives we are part of that grief. I can very easily turn towards all of that grief, focus my energy on generating compassion to all the people suffering. Turning away from my own suffering, refusing to face it. In doing so I do not offer the same love and compassion to myself that I easily can offer to others.

He brought me back to the instruction of loving-kindness for myself. That I must learn how to do this practice, whatever it takes. Start by focusing my energy on someone I genuinely love, really touch that love and then switch that energy to my face. Laughing he said even if I had to imagine the most adorable puppy ever, then put a photograph of my face on the puppy's head. Or the sweetest kitten, "With Sherri's nose ring!" he said.

Even I had to laugh at Hogen coming up with the image of a fuzzy kitten with my nose ring. He urged me to think of this, to find some way to make myself recipient of the love and compassion I so easy turn outwards. That he said is how I need to practice with the grief, to keep working with the awful intensity of it that just seems to keep building up.

What Good is Revisiting

I woke up feeling heavy, cold and anxious this morning. I got out of bed early thinking I'd take a hot shower, sit zazen a little, and then I'd be up to going to work. Instead I felt worse in the shower, no amount of heat seeming to help the cold grief I felt. After drying off, feeling small, I crawled back into bed, crying.

I'd gone through yesterday feeling tight with the tension of the news I'd received in the morning. A close friend's marriage, which has taken her into isolation in Kentucky, has turned abusive. My mother's received tentative diagnosis of retinal carcinoma and a suspicious shadow on her right lung. She'll be seeing a Kaiser oncologist for the right lung and arrangements are being made for her to be seen at the eye institute at OHSU. I just felt a kind of shock at it all. On top of getting ready to sign the divorce papers it is a lot to take in.

Visiting with my therapist yesterday we talked about my ability to compromise myself out of something I really need. How I'd felt really shut down when AM wasn't able to share my practice with me. How I have a weakness for being talked out of my needs, for being convinced that something else is just fine. She pointed out that I was going to compromise my sexuality, not experience a fulfilling relationship with a woman because I was able to not look at my needs.

In part it is conditioning for often being told that something else was good enough and I was being selfish for not seeing it. I grew very adept at knowing the good in situations, trying to focus on that because the times I didn't my Mother could be very angry with me, even striking me across the face once.

I can feel that part of my brain, immediately upon noting how she once hit me. Instantly going to re-frame, make that sound better. I note how it only happened once, minimizing the damage. It is the part of my mind that will insist that I was never injured by any of my family members, never had to seek medical help for anything. Like somehow the the lack of greater trauma made it all OK.

I asked CK to come to my physical/craniosacral therapy appointment with IW, trying to listen to the voice that needs. It was good to have her there and IW taught her a few releases for some of my recurring trigger points in my back and left hip. I decided not to write at all last night nor did I end up sitting.

This morning, crying in bed I decided to take the day off. Well, CK helped me to decide, helped me listen to the ways in which I just needed to cry, to rest, rather than listen to my inner critic who kept telling me to get up, get dressed, and go to work, be a grown up. Even suggesting that I was selfish and stupid for being so upset, that I was going to waste a potentially happy vacation day in the future I could spend with CK. An endless stream of reasons as to why I shouldn't just tell work I was taking a day off.

After logging in and seeing I had no meetings, I sent out a message that I wasn't feeling well. CK made me some toast and tea. After finishing those I slept for quite some time, utterly exhausted. I've resisted the urge to do more work beyond logging into my email a couple of times. I have knit a little and we're going to go for a walk out in the sunshine soon. I may even take another nap.

GM noted yesterday that she still thinks I'm expressing grief I've felt and held back for a very long time. I asked her, especially from my Zen perspective, what good is this to go back and look at this, to revisit these things. She said that in going back an feeling the grief I didn't, couldn't allow myself to express I can also look at why I felt that way. In the case of not getting to share a practice with Andy I can look at my need to share a spiritual practice with someone is important and use that experience to remember why I must express my actual needs, rather than rationalize myself, or be rationalize out of them.

Walking Foward

Today seemed to bring a lot of news of deaths. In between trying to get phpMyAdmin running I updated the merit list for Thursday's service with the names that kept arriving in my email today.

I was happy that today brought the lovely news the George Takei finally was able to marry his partner of many years. It has been so beautiful to read news of so many people able to wed legally, even though at times there is great sadness mixed with the joy. It continues to astound me that people choose to be so narrow in their religion as to deny marriage to people, how this isn't so simple.

And then there's me. Married to a man, just what many of those same religious people would pray to come into my life. That I be "straightened" out by the love a good man. Only that isn't what happened at all. A good, even if flawed man, could see immediately I wasn't straight, wasn't even truly bisexual. He said to me tonight that one of the first times he really watched me look at a woman he knew I was a lesbian.

But here I am, I love my best friend but we can no longer ignore the (lesbian) elephant in the room. It is not the only reason he and I have drifted apart these past 4+ years, but my experience with it has changed and made it obvious the ways in which I've still be playing along. Maybe this time I've been doing it, working around my unhappiness, not because I'm tired of being yelled at. Still, doing it because I don't want to hurt someone isn't right either.

I have little hope that the people who currently would deny the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples would stretch even further to not judge me and my relationships. A lesbian married to a man in love with a woman. In a relationship with them both. Our middle way, but to the view of most people it was a path far out on the fringes. Regardless of that, I have to judge the way for me.

More people from my sangha finding me on Facebook. I am again reminded that I am not ashamed of my choices nor what I've written about, however, I am aware of the need to approach this with care. I never really entertained the idea that it would just be college friends, current friends (many in San Francisco) who I enjoy keeping up with. I am so glad to have spoken to my teacher some weeks ago now as well as speaking to the head of our community here in Portland. I am considering what steps I should take. Perhaps an email acknowledging that questions may arise and that I welcome them? Perhaps meeting with the Harmony Committee as was suggested by RP, progressing from there.

The biggest change for the house today was Bodhi finding a new home with a friend of AM's, J. This is a big relief and yet sad too. Bodhi was just too big for either AM or I with our physical limitations, he easily knocked AM off his feet several times. Because of it AM has felt himself growing into his depression. To top it off, Bodhi has just been unhappy. He loves us, but he loves being around other dogs more and has seemed to suffer being away from the kennel environment because of it.

J really loves big, playful, boisterous dogs. He stood there playing with a rope with Bodhi for several minutes, both of them looked utterly thrilled. He has a dog about the same size, but about 16 years old. J has apparently been quite at a loss at his dog's aging, no longer being able to play and get around as well. He's wanted to get another dog for some time now. It really seems to be a good fit.

It inevitably leaves me thinking of Juno, my last dog, an Alaskan/Siberian husky mix that was all energy. I have never been able to shake the feeling like I did the wrong thing by her and in the end she disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. I wasn't even there and, during a moment of pre-teen anger, DW once told me it was all my fault since Juno ran away clearly trying to find me. No matter how often I tell myself it wasn't my fault it is hard to really let this go.

Oh, the hips...

Yesterday was a three hour hip opening, first chakra (Muladhara) workshop at Prananda. Last year during the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training workshop I ran into how intense getting into this chakra can be. I'd ended up in tears being assisted in holding a pose I feel is a true ally (supta padanguthasana). I was a little nervous about this but at least prepared.

In a couple of poses, holding them far longer than usual, I felt some tingling of the panic that shows up with IW works on the trigger points on my left sit bone. I was able to breath through these things. A few times it became so intense I would just lay down or do child's pose.

It was during savasana, resting with a flax seed bag over my eyes, that I felt the deep grief well up inside of me, mixed with some of the anxiety and fear. I felt very anxious and kept trying to just breath through it. When it got to be too much I turned my head to the side and let the bag fall off of my eyes. I stretched out my hand to touch CK's elbow as she lay in savasana next to me. She felt me and reached her hand out to hold mind.

I dislike crying to begin with, it awakens all kinds of fear in me that I'll be punished for it in some way. That's how I feel at home crying. In public it feels so much worse. After we sat up and offered three chants of Om I lay back down on my side, feeling the wetness on my face. I curled up in a tight ball, just feeling the grief and shame. CK stayed with me, helping me find my way back through.

JW came over for a moment, just to check in and be sure I was OK. After the workshop participants, including CK, left the teacher training students settled down to watch more of the DVD. I lay on my side, shawl over me, and just was present for the words of the DVD. Tried not to go back into the fear or grief.

After some DVD watching we went back to adho mukha svanasana. I think I may have done the pose 24 times in a couple of hours. Reviewed the respiratory system and assists for downward dog. CK came and picked me up. I had my bike but was so utterly exhausted I knew I couldn't make it to her flat.

We stopped at Dalo's on the way home, enjoying the usual vegetarian platter. Spent a lot of time talking that night and got to sleep a bit late. Both of us taking more ibuprofen before managing to get comfortable enough to sleep.

CK was yoga'd out after Saturday's workshop and stayed home while I taught my Sunday class. It was a good class, broke down downward dog further as well as some shoulder things. Another new student today, G, a man who seems to be in his late 40s/early 50s. Unsurprisingly his shoulders are very, very tight as well as his upper back. He left saying he'd be back next week.

CK had been busy cleaning and making yummy tempeh hash. We had that for lunch topped with tomatoes from the garden, it was just such lovely comfort food after teaching and the work on Saturday. We hung out for a while, resting and talking, then walked up to the library then on to Mio Gelato where we discovered vegan sorbetto. We each had a scoop of nectarine sorbetto which tasted just like late summer!

After getting back to the house, CK brought me and the bike home, AM and I talked for a bit before making wonderful pizza. Whole wheat crust, tomatoes from the garden, grilled eggplant & "cue ball" squash from the garden, and some Tofurky Italian sausage. We've hung out in the basement watching stuff on Discovery while I've done laundry and wrote.

Hard Tension, Inconvenient Love

I am feeling compressed, compacted down. I ache physically all over and feel emotionally depleted. I am so tired of the tidal waves of grief and sorrow that is left over when I manage to talk myself out of the places of shame, fear, and anger. All that is left is absolute sorrow and I feel utterly flayed by it.

On the drive out to the monastery CK tried to get me to talk a little about what I'd been really struggling with these past several days and I stammered my way through some if it. The ugly shame pushed onto me at such a young age and seething below the surface, popping up to paralyze me in traumatic incidents. The fear the accompanies it all, that I'll be punished and/or humiliated.

We never made it inside once we arrived. Instead sneaking around the building into the gardens we went. Tension dodged our every step, biting at our heels whenever we would stop. I sat, sobbing, in the leaves by what I think of as my Jizo statue, the one that holds my messages to myself and is near to the plaques for Spalding and Buzz. The past several weeks and the stumbling on intimacy I was feeling, combined with the choking shame I had talked about in the car, the immense grief, and the consuming fear all flooded through me.

We tried to come around the kitchen side and go, but there were people there with lanterns. Nearly ran into others by the zendo. Finally we got to the gym side and I felt stricken when JH called out my name from where she stood by the greenhouse doors. I was anxious at her offering concern, compassion at seeing my face covered in tears. I feel guilty somehow for sneaking around a place so special to me, leaving the cookies I brought on the bench to be found.

The drive home was filled with tension so loud it seemed like a thing you could touch, burn your skin against. With it, for me was horrible, hopeless awful sorrow -- rushes of guilt, shame, fear streaking through it. It lessened when we talked briefly, the horrible roaring wind noise in my head let off a little, but I still felt taut with misery. I tried to just breath and feel my way towards something more real.

Once we got to the house she came in and we laid down in the relative cool of the bedroom. We picked our way through the terrible weight of the emotions that had be bearing down upon us the whole day. Finding the way back to one another through the mental noise and breathing together. Eventually, when we both felt reconnected to the present, to love, CK headed home.

And here I sit in the basement. Checking the hot line by phone and URL for news of the negotiation. I dislike these nights, the summers where August is up in the air until after an agreement is settled. More than anything, that uncertainty every two years out of three is the thing that most motivates me to want to do something else with me life.

CK is at her flat, taking care of Atari in the high heat of today. I sent her a message a little while ago that I'm still waiting. AM has gone up to bed. The room is filled with the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard and the fans stirring the air. Occasionally Bodhi moves in his sleep.

I feel still but in a tight way, not spacious. It is amazingly difficult and the timing is so bad. I found myself thinking tonight that I hadn't wanted to meet anyone at the time I was introduced to CK. I had just had an awful experience at having been triggered at work which spanned over two days and got so bad as to include an auditory flashback. Up until last October I'd felt safe at work, at least safe from my past triggering me emotionally. When I met her I was feeling so destabilized and unsure of myself. Regardless of any inconvenient timing I love her, it is just so undeniably true that I can only work from the point of that truth.

I would rather be sorting through all of this shit in my past alone, preferably in a cave somewhere so it wouldn't affect anyone around me. I wish I could either get good at this grieving stuff or just get over it. I feel like it pulls me away from the present and I resent this much additional pain in my life, having to incorporate it into the whole person I am. Sometimes, like tonight, there is no amount of reminding myself that I'm experiencing it in the present because in the past there was no safe way to express it leaves me feeling OK about it in any way.

High Centered

My two day hiatus from blog writing hasn't been to being away from the computer all weekend. It has been a long, hard weekend in relationship building and I was trying to not interrupt time with CK with writing. The time we were apart I was too agitated to write, didn't even think about trying, and worked on sorting out things in the house.

I have experienced distance physically and emotionally in my relationship since returning from Vancouver. I have been able to observe on an intellectual level that my withdrawal is triggered by old trauma, not the relationship, same as the terrible shame I have felt come up. Regardless of the mind understanding I have felt stuck with the way my body holds onto painful events from the past.

And stuck I have been. We had one morning during OSCON where there was a momentary break in tension and there was space to explore intimacy. We never really got it worked out as to what was causing the problem so it has continued to grow, pushing us further apart and into our own pain. It felt like the relationship is a vehicle high centered on something. Maybe only one wheel able to touch ground at a time while the rest just spin futilely in the air. Stuck.

I've felt the wind knocked out of me over it all. Unable to breath and overwhelmed by how deep the shame is buried in my whole self. I've not really worked with it at all, just trying to focus on processing the tremendous amount of grief and anger at how unfair it all was. But now seems to be the time for it to be acknowledged.

I thought I had touched upon it. This relationship has helped me feel the complete falseness of some of the terrible messages I got as a young child. I'm able to really explore my sexuality with another person and it is safe, nurturing. Then it was gone, only I was sleeping next to her several times a week but no connection was there. We had reached a point we were barely touching once we got to bed, I'd curl into a ball and stay awake while she went to sleep.

At first I was just feeling abandonment, feeling like things were ending. Which wouldn't match up with lunchtime conversations about having a baby, building a home together. Then the shame started to seep in with the fear of being left. I felt wrong for wanting her to touch me, ashamed of the want and like I should be able to control it, make it go away. I felt wrong from wanting to touch her, ashamed of myself for that want and feeling that if something went wrong I'd be punished somehow. I was locked in fear and shame around asking for touch, to touch. I began to settle into my own silence. The "safety" of saying nothing at all.

Today, after a very tough night -- she had unsettled dreams and I kept waking hearing people outside (turned out we'd forgotten to turn off the radio and NPR had come on) -- I had to leave for my class. She told me she wasn't going to the class and I felt hurt, rejected. She said she also wouldn't go to a class today at the dharma center, which I understood but was not happy with. I felt like she snapped at me and my irritation flared to life. It was so hard leaving to teach and I left angry. By the time I got to Dishman I sent a note apologizing for getting angry.

I know that all of the Buddhist precepts are practice, things I have to keep doing over and over again. I've been working really hard at the idea of anger. Not that I can get rid of anger, but to control it, to not give rise to my anger when I feel it. Whenever I fail at anything I feel it so sharply. To fail to control my anger, to snap at CK, leaves me feeling so graceless and inconsiderate. I also know it is unreasonable to expect that I'll always do things the best way possible, I'm trying to let go of that, but to fall down on something and see shock & hurt on her face just feels so much more a failure.

I went back over to her flat after teaching so we could continue to talk. I had spoken with AM to let him know what was up and gave up on the class at the dharma center even though it is on NVC, something I think will help us talk. I said I thought that if we tried to just lay down together and talk about what came up when we did it was just as valid lesson in communicating as going to the class. We had looked at some books on how to heal intimacy -- books that were Jessa's that GK thought I should end up with since I'd finally shared with her that I'd been sexually abused -- and thought about trying some of the sharing activities.

It was so hard. I told her what scared me, what was coming up for me. We talked about how a fear not being in control comes up for her. We talked about how to work on it, offered just compassion to some things, understanding the pain we each feel. We worked on trying to touch each other with lots of communication. I find it so hard to talk aloud and directly, feeling the pull of the shame, but she stuck with me. She would bend close when I felt like I couldn't talk so I could whisper to her instead.

In the past I'd just have not pursued this. I'd have consoled myself with food or distractions and not addressed any of the pain I kept buried. It was considerably easier than this hard, painful work. Only I was miserable, 150 pounds heaver and never distracted enough by that fact.

Can't see the Way for the mileposts

I woke up just past 6AM with no alarm, just awake to the brightness of what promised to be a hot August day by Portland standards. I didn't feel too exhausted. I was alert but something about it let me know that I was still anxious just below the surface. I'd taken some melatonin the night before and felt like I had rested, but the grief and anxiety from yesterday still persisted.

I came into the office to find that important reports still had not been run as expected. I sat down to my day and let my mind settle into the tasks at hand. I worked on projects steadily until CK came to meet me for lunch. We walked over to Blossoming Lotus for another tasty lunch. I was able to have the big salad I was craving and CK enjoyed her usual, yummy barbecue tempeh sandwich.

Sometime during lunch, with a toddler making hot, impatient sounds, she said my email about having a baby together was sweet. I felt some of the grip of the anxiety let up. We talked briefly on all the things we have to figure out in the next few years and that could settle. This possibility, these feelings are ones wholly new and while not entirely terrifying, I feel keenly vulnerable in exploring them.

Sitting in the park after lunch for a few minutes I told her that I was trying to make space to allow myself to feel grief about my past. During the first 30 years of my life (I had started to say childhood and she pointed out that my first marriage wasn't supportive either) I wasn't able to really experience the sadness, anger, and fear. Not only did I not know any other way, but the times when I did experience those emotions I wasn't supported and at times I was punished for it.

Underneath my impatience is fear. Fear that my loved ones are eventually going to get tired of me going in and out of waves of sorrow all the time. That the burden of my need for support will grow to be too much. That I'll no longer fulfill them and they'll withdraw at best, leave at worst. So I want to "get over it", want to stop being reminded of my past, my pain.

I wish there was some kind of time line for this. A project plan with due dates, task lists, even meetings and go/no-go decisions. I want this process to be something I can organize, categorize, and understand the process of. I don't feel like I see that I'm reaching milestones. My therapist points them out to me, but since I am not actually feeling better I don't feel like I've accomplished anything.